


Untitled 19 - 39

by samskeyti



Category: History Boys - Bennett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 02:43:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samskeyti/pseuds/samskeyti
Summary: Scripps and Posner Grow Up.





	Untitled 19 - 39

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enjambament](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjambament/gifts).



**Untitled 19**

_1985, Oxford_

This is the write-it-down time, the making fucking sense of it that he always told himself he’d do, if something happened. If one of the towering, revelatory, existential crises that only ever happen to irritating hero-narrators in Bildungsroman or queasy poetry, the sort they’ve all been waiting to happen to Posner (not least Pos, he bets) — if one of those ridiculous crises ever happened to _him_. 

Don Scripps was in the Chapel at Magdalen, first Saturday after summer hols, the light through the windows all high romantic, _lads and girls_ and heartache. The light the polar opposite of grey-cloaked home, where it had never actually rained though it promised grimly, and he spent weeknights with Dakin and weekends with Lockwood and drank like he imagined students ought and repented at morning service on Sunday. And he didn’t see Irwin (not one of them had, since). And he didn’t see Posner. He called round, naturally, both having made themselves scarce for exams in the weeks before. He’d snuck a look at the boards, it wasn’t that sort of disaster. It was something else that made old Mr Posner glare like he blamed Scripps when he said he wasn’t coming up, but staying in somewhere that sounded ludicrous and rural, someone from his College’s home. 

The first he’d heard of it, like being elbowed by a sudden enemy, sharp and lingering under his ribs.

Anyway, the Chapel, with him there early like he prefers, alone with space for his thoughts when he heard footsteps. Not sneakers, not girlish heels, but dress shoes, perhaps. Stop-start-stop then rapid and purposeful. Stop. A breath, he's sure he knows who, now and lifts his head in time to hear the about-face and see him go. Slender in shadow, determined, too swift for Scripps to go after and Scripps too speechless, too flushed and blind and stupid to call out. 

He put his head down again, swore into his fists, almost apologising out loud but not. Not. Like the windows have fallen in on him and the light’s more now, and he sees. They’re going to dust, maybe soon and for good, certainly and _God_ , (fucking God), Donald Scripps has been wrong about it all. 

By the time he’s out the door there’s no bright-haired boy to be seen. He steps into the sun, in the likeliest direction. He’s going to mess it all up. He wants to mess it up. And he doesn’t think he can go back to church again.

**Untitled 24**

_1990_

In Manchester, they came across one another again, years after Donald messed things up and David screamed that it wasn’t about _him_ , not his heart that was broken and whose trust was broken and who had to get tested and was convinced for a week that he was going to die and can Don just _fuck off_ with his spiritual crisis. Years after they never spoke of it again. They came across one another in the gardens, walking and watching and swerving instinctively apart as soon as they saw one another. Open-mouthed idiots, gaping at each other from separate sides of a shaded path. David teaching, classes of girls adoring him. Don reporting, flustered — not now, I mean, that’s my day job — now he’s crimson, Posner sly and relentless, grinning. Leaning into him. _Oh, Scripps_. 

At the club, later, Pos veering from the dance floor, hair tousled with gel and sweat, eyes way too wide (Don didn’t have one, he’s so uptight, he appalls himself). He has a smear of silver over his cheekbone, from a face or a shoulder in the scrum, Don couldn’t tell. Don’s clutching his drink, parched and all at once enthralled by the hands stealing his glass, the lips drinking, the eyes locked on his — dark, untrustworthy eyes, he warns himself, all that early temperance runs deep in Don Scripps but he’s fathoms deep and he’ll give him everything. He strokes the glitter in his face, thumb drawing down his cheek to his lips and Pos closes his eyes, sighs his ridiculous sigh and Don leans close, almost speaks, almost breaks their spell with asking if he’s for real or if he’s sure or if he’s teasing but for once in his life Don shuts up and doesn’t know. No idea, no fucking idea at all as he kisses his oldest friend, pulls his body close and feels it in every nerve, everywhere, every molecule of soul he wasn’t sure he had when David shudders and matches him, hands under his shirt, hips closer now and somewhere in his kiss, Don swears, is a gleeful, knowing sound, that every time he thinks of this will echo in the empty parts of his chest.

 **Untitled 28**

_1994, Sheffield._

Not raining. No sleet. Blue mockery in the sky. Posner’s hand and his arm, every finger there for dear life. His chin on his shoulder, breathing regular and soft and Don is so thankful for that. He feels David holding him to earth, when he feels hollowed out enough to float free and away when he doesn’t want to, didn’t want any of them to, not now. Not yet. 

This is worse that Hector’s. Worse than his grandfather’s. In the graveyard, in front of the minister, in front of the Lockwoods, in front of all of them, he turns and hides his face in Posner’s breath, finds his free hand and holds on and almost cries.

 **Untitled 39**

_2005, London_

They’re late in the round of engagements. Timms and Rudge have three kids each. Akhtar and his wife have a gurgling, gluttonous baby and Crowther and his partner have taken an ideological stance against marriage, while Dakin’s on his second go around. They’re late but hopeful. Late but reckless and not a bit middle-aged. Though Don writes reasoned, progressive articles and Posner swears it doesn’t matter with what they _have_ , says he’ll break their glassware and have Don’s brothers carry him in chair so he towers over Don’s rapidly-sparsening hair, if that’s what Don really, really want. Though it’ll be of doubtful validity with neither of them being Canadian, it’s David who drops to one knee on their rooftop at 11:30 pm on new Year’s Eve. Who pulls a jeweller’s box and printed out Air Canada tickets from his coat and promptly forgets his speech. Who eventually stammers and gives up, blurting out — Don, you know you want to! And it’s Don who can’t find a single word for five whole minutes, just kneels with him and grins and sobs a little. 

He said yes. Still sitting on the roof with their hands and legs muddled together, a pair of Cheshire Cats as the fireworks boom in the distance, and the neighbours shriek and the cars start their horn chorus and they left the champagne in the kitchen. They left their coats in the kitchen. They ought to know better, and David’s mother would say they’ll catch their deaths. Don’s mother-in-law! He laughs, pulls David closer, murmurs that he’s ridiculous, Mr Scripps. He hears that he needs to shut up, Mr Posner, before the biggest firework hits the sky and the faint flash winks in the corners of the sky and he’s being kissed by the only boy he ever wanted, really.


End file.
